Customer Reviews

Data Structures, Algorithms, and Applicatins in Java

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(10)

 

 

I'm a student in WV and I used this book for a Data Structures/Algorithms class last semester. To say the least, the book is dry and difficult to follow, so much so, that my professor eventually wrote extensive class notes and posted them on his website so that we wouldn't have to use the book. Some have refered to Sahni's code as beautiful and elegant, which may be true on an artistic level. However it is difficult to understand due to lack of documentation and poor use of variable names ('p' & 's' for linked lists and arrays which may be 'm' and 'a' the next time.) Additionally, Sahni feels that he needs to write and package code which is redundant to preexisiting (and semi-standardized) java packages. It would be much more useful if he had used the standard packages -- packages which a student will actually use later in life. The worst part, though, may be that it is such a bad book that bookstores won't even buy it back -- it's not being used anywhere.

I feel that this book is horrible and unhelpful in understanding Data Structures. I am a poor UF student forced to use the book since it is written by the teacher. Many examples are hard to follow and some exercises are impossible to understand. Sahni's codes and examples are not as magnificent as everyone may say they are. Many of the classes are hard to follow because of poor use of names and documentation(Some classes don't even have API documentation).
This book clearly needs revision.

This book does a horrible job of showing how to understand Data Structures. FOr someone already familiar with them, or with a great teacher, these are excellent books, explaining concepts very fully.

However, if you're familiar with them, why purchase this book?

The code, while I'd like to say its atrocious, really isn't--but its close enough. When writing a program for everyone else, 'g' does not count as a well defined variable (except as a counter, but a class? No.)

People who are learning need complete examples, especially if the example is then picked apart SEPERATELY FROM THE FULL LISTING.

This book is a professors dream, but it DOESN'T TEACH. This book will have half a page of discussion, and then a page and a half of 'excercises'

Instead of showing you, and letting you learn, it attempts to teach through brute force.

The book reads like a cookbook and has a lackluster quality that typifies the author's, Sartaj Sahni's, mediocre writing style. The author merely describes various data structures and their implementation in Java without fully explaining the conceptual basis for data structures or the relationships between different data structures. The author's cookbook approach renders the material more difficult to comprehend, its as though the author expects the reader to memorize the material as opposed to gaining a fundamental conceptual understanding. The author's limited understanding of the subject matter becomes self-evident by his inability to provide a detailed conceptual analysis when needed. The buyer should be aware that the author does appear to have a small band of loyal followers who have intentionally overrated the merits of this book.

The book exemplifies rote learning at its worst--mechanical learning without regard to understanding or underlying meaning or concepts. That to me is not learning at all. Unfortunately, the author, Sartaj Sahni, believes readers and students have evolved specialized cranial regions comprising of a machine learning device or computer that has a magnetic hard drive neatly tucked inside for rote data input. The New York publishing establishment has shown bias in their falsely overrating this book. Floridians are the only ones commenting since the Univ. of Fla., where Sartaj Sahni teaches, is the only institution that uses this book.

This book is, as others say, stale, boring, etc. I took Sahni's class, got a good grade, and attended class every day. This isn't just a blanket attack because of a bad grade or whatever the above reader would like people to believe. The book has very few useful examples and the homework examples frequently go beyond the scope of the book. Many important topics, or so Sahni would lead you to believe in his lectures, are only covered for a few paragraphs. The book clearly clearly reflects Dr. Sahni's dull personality. Oh, and not to mention the last 2 chapters of the book aren't even IN the book, they are on the book's web page as .pdf files.

After having read through 8 chapters of this book I can honestly say that this material is extremely dry. I have read few books on the same topic but have never come across one that seems so overly tedious. The material, which isn't that difficult when explained clearly, is presented with in this book with unecessary, unorganized discriptions. Some coding examples go unexplained while some examples refer to other coding examples that are pages, if not chapters off. What I found is that much of the knowledge that this book presents in the early chapters is knowledge I already had, but since it is written in such a confusing and over technical manner, I didn't realize it until certain students would point that out. I have heard and seen writing styles that are much superior in explanation when it comes to explaning this material. I was extremely dissapointed in this book and I don't think that after 8 chapters it will get any better. Teaching is being able to express cleary to the learners. You cannot learn from somebody you cannot understand.

I feel sorry for the students at the University of Fl. who are required to read this book. They are the only group of students that are subjected to such an unbearable task. Furthermore, they are not learning a darn thing. The Book does not teach concepts or theory. What is being taught is the old art form of 'brownnosing', "don't tell your teacher he wrote a terrible book".

I am one of the unfortunate students that has to use this book, and I reside outside florida. Boy did my professor make a mistake when he chose this book to be the main text of my class! This book book is boring, extremelly dry, and hard to follow. I really don't care if Dr. Sahni is a genius (as paraphrased from another post on amazon.com about this book), alla I really care about is to be able to understand the subject matter and get the point that Sahni is trying to communicate. In my opinion he is a pompous son of a gun (to put it midly) that tries to blow smoke and make us think that we know what he is talking about. The "smart" code that he uses makes it hard to read and comprehend, thus hard to learn. It is also a bad example because we as students have always been told to follow coding standards, a thing that Sahni doesnt do and throws us off. Also little snippets of code dont cut the mustard, there is no documentation in the book of what the code does in means of comments, and he proceeds after his "example", to explain everything is such mathematical detail that he doesnt care to explain it in plain, real life, english so that others can understand what the program is doing. Finally, this guy, Sahni, is so full of himself and he made up his own API, java's wasn;t enough for him, he had to make his own, which we, in real life, aren't probably going to use.

Those were my tow cents

I bought this book because it was required for my CS course (intro to data structures). The book is not written well (it's obvious that English is not his first language) and I found myself reading the same line over and over because I just could not understand the book! The examples normally clarify, but here they are extremely heavy in math and even the professor commented that he couldn't follow some of them (still wondering why he wanted us to get the book). Definately the wrong choice to learn data structures from. I would recommend Data Structures and Algorithms from the Mitchell Waite Signature Series. It goes easy on the math and explains in plain simple english. This book by Sahni does not explain things in simple easy to understand language that those of us first starting off need to read. Do not buy this book unless you are forced to for a class.